Three weeks ago, Qualcomm Stadium pulsed with 60,000 football fans on a bright Sunday afternoon.

As kickoff approached, San Diego native Amber Hockridge, wearing a Chargers T-shirt, was ready to Bolt Up after she’d just paid a concessionaire $9 for a 16-ounce beer, costliest in the 32-team league.

In all, Hockridge spent about $100 to take in the Chargers-Falcons game, which was blacked out on TV. She did so willingly, “Because I enjoy it,” she said.

There are indications that she is part of an increasing minority.

The NFL prohibits live TV broadcasts within 75 miles of the home stadium if the game isn’t sold out within 72 hours of kickoff. After six years without a blackout, Chargers fans have lost six local telecasts in the last three seasons.

When the Chargers don’t sell enough tickets to prevent a blackout, pundits and fans speculate on the reasons. Economic downturns, on-field performance, the stadium experience, the appeal of high-definition TVs – all are cited as contributing factors.

One other factor, though, is mentioned more than any other. Price.

According to a recent Team Marketing Report’s survey of NFL pricing, the Chargers’ fan experience for a family of four is the seventh-most expensive in the NFL at $466.20 per game.

When asked recently about that figure, the Chargers declined comment. In their defense, the Chargers haven’t raised ticket prices at all in the last five years. But still, that $466.20 figure is up 5.2 percent this year, indicating that the team has raised prices in other areas.

Thirsty Chargers fans, for example, pay at a high rate.

The Bills are the only other NFL team to charge $9 for a beer but do so for 20 ounces, four more than the $9 beer at Qualcomm.

The smallest available soft drink to Chargers fans costs $5.75, exceeding all but two other clubs, the Ravens and Falcons.

To try and gain some perspective on the Chargers’ pricing policies, and with the team not commenting, U-T San Diego asked three other NFL clubs about the Team Marketing Report. One, speaking on the condition of anonymity, questioned whether the ticket price findings accounted for the large degree of variance in “premium seats” from club to club. The other clubs wanted more time to study it.

Dolphins CEO Mike Dee said he wasn’t sure pricing was the key factor in the Chargers blackout problem. The Dolphins have also been in danger of having multiple games blacked out recently, although the team has sometimes decided to buy up the unsold tickets to avoid the blackout, something the Chargers aren’t willing to do.

“Like San Diego,” he said, “there’s a lot of things to do and a lot of competing interests,” Dee said.

Trying to fills its stadium, each franchise has its own set of challenges and advantages. The 49ers, for example, have gone more than a decade without a blackout, yet they had several lean seasons in the 2000s and play at haggard Candlestick Park, which was built for both football and baseball and is many years past its prime. But Fortune 500 companies are more numerous in greater San Francisco than greater San Diego, giving the 49ers a potent corporate base.

And many NFL cities, like Miami and San Diego, have a lot of other things going on that compete for people’s attention and dollars.

Dee acknowledged that the Dolphins’ recent struggles have probably had an impact on ticket sales the past couple years, too. While the Chargers have been much better than Miami, there is a feeling around town that they have underperformed since going 13-3 in 2009. That, rather than price, might be a bigger factor in sluggish ticket sales.

“You’ve got to be putting a competitive team on the field, and marketing aggressively to keep the interest level high,” Dee said.

Chargers fans who want to watch the telecast would like fellow fans to make every game a sellout. To that end, they’ve made suggestions to the club: Lower the price of the cheapest single-game tickets, which start at $54. Win a Super Bowl. Buy unsold tickets and donate them to military personnel.

Monday night at Qualcomm, the Chargers will face the Broncos in an AFC West matchup that could have a big impact on the division race. Chargers coach Norv Turner said the home crowd’s noise could be vital to the team’s attempts to defend Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning. In past years, loud Chargers crowds hindered Manning as he operated a no-huddle offense, Turner said, and contributed to two victories over Manning’s Colts.

Enough tickets were sold to lift the blackout. More than 11,000 tickets, however, are still available for the Nov. 1 game against the last-place Chiefs. If the Bolts want to sell out that game, a victory over Denver could only help.

It’s hard to predict, though, if even that will be enough to sway enough Chargers fans to pay the price to prevent another blackout.